The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, January 14, urged the co -passengers of the 29-year-old Filipino real estate agent who tested positive for the more infectious United Kingdom (UK) COVID-19 variant to “actively reach out” to authorities for contact tracing.
In a virtual press briefing on Thursday morning, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said authorities are having a hard time contacting some of the passengers of the Emirates Flight No. EK 332, where the case was aboard from Dubai to Manila on January 7.
Vergeire said there were 159 passengers in the flight, excluding the Filipino case. Only 92 have been contacted and 52 have responded.
“Those who did not respond had unattended calls, numbers cannot be reached, wrong number, or rejected calls of contact tracers,” she added.
The DOH has instructed its regional units to “physically locate cases and determine health, laboratory, and quarantine status.”
“The DOH [encourages] passengers to actively reach out to public health authorities for contact tracing,” Vergeire said.
Meanwhile, all 5 close contacts – who are all household members – prior to their Dubai trip have been identified. They are now isolated and their specimens were collected for testing.
Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said they are doing everything possible to trace and isolate, “knowing fully well that this variant is more contagious but not more virulent.”
The Filipino case residing in Kamuning, Quezon City, departed for Dubai on December 27 for a business trip. He was accompanied by his girlfriend, who tested negative for COVID-19 upon arrival in Manila.
The DOH said the two visited malls, groceries, and tourist sites in Dubai.
Why this matters
Effective contact tracing would prevent the more infectious variant of SARS-CoV-2 to spread at a time when the Philippine government is struggling with its pandemic response.
Experts have warned this new variant of COVID-19 might increase the coronavirus cases in the Philippines by up to 15-fold.
When the the country eased its quarantine restrictions in July, the healthcare system was “nearly overwhelmed” due to the spike in cases. This prompted healthcare workers to call for a “timeout” as they urged the government to revert virus epicenter Metro Manila to a stricter quarantine measure. (READ: Doctors warn Duterte: PH ‘nearing end of the line’ in coronavirus battle)
As of January 12, 34% or 9,086 out of 25,969 hospital beds in the country have been occupied.
The COVID-19 variant known as B117 was first detected in the United Kingdom in September 2020. In November, around a quarter of the reported COVID-19 cases in the country were found to be of the new variant.
British researchers and public officials have said the B117 variant is more transmissible than other versions of the coronavirus, with estimates saying it may range from 50% to 70% more infectious than the old variant.
According to scientists, the new variant does not appear to be “more deadly” than the original variant. However, it leads to an increased viral load inside a person’s respiratory tract so it spreads more easily when people talk or cough.
The pandemic has so far infected over 92 million people globally. In the Philippines, a total of 494,605 have been infected with the deadly virus as of January 14. Of the total, 9,739 have died while 459,252 have recovered. – Rappler.com
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